


The Devil is in the Details

by Lissamel



Series: Inky Souls & The Depths Below (or, Lissa's Ink Machine Canon) [1]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Contracts, Gen, How Do I Tag, Ink, Not a lot but it's there, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-19 22:52:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10649730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lissamel/pseuds/Lissamel
Summary: A BENDY THE DANCING DEMON CARTOON!BENDY IN: THE DEVIL AND HIS DUE!A cartoon presented in Sillyvision (TM)! Bendy the Dancing Demon finds an old friend of it's and tries to collect what it thinks it deserves.





	The Devil is in the Details

Henry was screwed.

At least, that was what he had kept telling himself. He’d tried all the doors, but they were jammed. The studio had no windows. He was trapped, but not alone--He could still hear the damn _whistling_ in his ears. That _thing_ was after him. He wasn’t sure _where_ it was, but he was sure he had to stay quiet, or it would--

“Aw, c’mon, Henry! Don’cha play around with yer old pal! You should know I’ll _always_ win at ‘ole hide-and-seek...S’almost like the walls have eyes.”

For a second, Henry could have sworn he saw the demon’s pie-shaped eyes blinking on the wooden walls. He put a hand on his chest, eyes moving back and forth, and the eyes on the walls disappeared...If they were even there at all. He swallowed thickly. He’d come to hide away in the old film editing room in hopes of finding some chemicals: turpentine, acetone, benzene, _anything._ He was out of luck; despite finding a can of turpentine left over Henry found that it was empty, a smudge of ink around the opening of the metal can. Had that thing _drank_ this? If so, scrubbing this demon out would take something stronger, though aside from straight-up holy water (which was _not_ going to be easy to find in a sealed cartoon studio), Henry couldn’t even begin to suppose _what_ . He nestled himself in the corner of the storage closet, among concept art, some possessions the old workers had left behind, and film strips that had ended up on the cutting-room floor but Joey couldn’t bear to part with. Cutting-room...He began to crawl on the floor, padding his hands against the ground to try and find some scissors. Did he believe it would kill the demon? _Hell_ no. But it’d impede it. And if he could jam off the doorknob with them and make a break for it, well, all the better.

_Joseph Mortimer Drew, if you weren’t dead, I would murder you for this!_

“Been a whole long while since I’ve even seen you, Henry! Let’s do a song, old time’s sake. Know a good one. Call-’n-response.” It paused to whistle a note, finding the right pitch. “ _Folks, here’s a story ‘bout Minnie the moocher, she was a red-hot hoochie-coocher…_ ”

Henry bit his lower lip, pushing aside some empty film reels. Scissors, scissors...Their old film editor had left his coat in the closet (the editor was the _only_ one who’d wear a coat so big and thick it looked like it’d consume him whole), and as quietly as he could muster he began to dig through the pockets. He was sure the editor wouldn’t mind. This was _life or death_ here. Within one of the interior pockets Henry found a heavy pair of black and silver scissors, and he put on a relieved smile. Thank _god._ Just had to wait for that thing to come to him…

“ _Ho-dee ho-dee ho_ …” It sang, but then it went silent, waiting for Henry’s response. He could still hear it’s feet tapping, coming closer to the editing room. His heart was beating hard. There was a small ‘hm’, but the little devil moved onto the next call: “ _Hi-dee hi-dee hi…_ ” The footsteps came even closer. Louder, louder, louder...And then they stopped. “ _Hee-dee dee-dee dee-dee_ …” It sang, then waited.

For one long, long moment, there was silence.

And then the closet door splintered in the middle, a loud crashing sound almost shaking the whole studio.

A hole was in the middle of the door, and on the other side of it was the little devil: Bendy. It had a grin on it’s face and a big, black mallet in it’s hands. It looked a bit off-model, too: shorter and thinner. It swung the mallet a few more times to make the hole bigger before putting the mallet behind it’s back--And practically pushing it inside of itself. The demon went back to it’s original dimensions, hopping through the hole and into the closet. “Gol- _ly_ , Henry, look at you! Lookin’ quite a sight, ain’t ‘cha? I thought you’d seen a ghost!” Bendy laughed, the sound being dissonantly cheery. “Man-oh-man, it’s been quite a while! I was hopin’ Joey would send for ‘ya--I missed you!”

Henry gripped harder on the scissors, keeping them close to his chest, hidden from Bendy’s sight. If he wanted to have _any_ hope against the demon, he’d need _surprise_ on his side. “What do you _want_ with me!?” His voice was exhausted, “I didn’t _do_ anything to you. It--It was all _Joey_ , and you got whatever the hell you wanted with _him._ What’s your problem!?”

That made it’s smile vanish, replaced with it’s cheeks puffing into a comical pout. “I did _not_ do whatever the # &!! I wanted with him,” The symbol-swearing was represented by little flecks of ink flicking off of the top of it’s head, forming the symbols, and then quickly re-entering it’s body. “Lyin’ cheat got what was comin’ to him! Both’a ‘ya creators are lyin’ cheats. Never givin’ me an’ Boris the respect we deserved! Not to mention the others,” It rocked back on it’s feet, eyes rolling away. “Peggy-Anne Angel, Betsy Butterfly, Rascal Rodger, Bartholomew Batt…” The demon rocked back forward, hands falling onto it's hips. “Ain’t no respect for _any_ of them! You _scrapped_ ‘em all!”

“I--” Henry fumbled over his tongue a bit. It’d been thirty years, he could barely remember any of those names, save the angel one. “It didn’t work out! You didn’t take off like we thought you would! We tried all the ideas we could think of, the money comes first--”

That was the wrong thing to say. Bendy stomped it’s foot, the ink of it’s body rippling. “All scrapped! Not to mention my pal Boris gettin’ the kiss off! Only pal left in the _world._ ” The demon took a couple of strides closer to Henry, who held his breath. “Joey got what he _deserved._ An’ now it’s just you an’ me, Henry, pal-o-mine.” As abrupt as though a switch had been flipped, Bendy put on a smile again, clasping it’s hands. “Aw, but you don’t hav’ta look so glum about it! I got big plans for ‘ya. And, hey, not even _lethal_ plans. How’s that sound?”

The man was caught slightly off guard. Considering Joey’s state, Henry had all but expected lethal plans. He kept his grip on the scissors tight, but he let himself straighten a bit. “... _What_?”

It nodded, giving a cheerful little whistle. “Yes-siree-bob, heard me right! Lemme show ‘ya what I mean.” It unclasped it’s hands, then suddenly grabbed it’s left glove, pulling it off of it’s wrist with a comical ‘pop’ noise. There was no hand below, just an empty stump of a wrist. Bendy then clenched the glove in it's hand, crumbling it. A flick of the wrist, and the crumpled mass suddenly unrolled into a sheet of paper.

A contract.

 _I, HENRY FAUNTLEROY WRIGHT, do hereby sign away ONE (1)_ (and here there were inky smudges blurring away some words) _to BENDY THE DANCING DEMON to do with as it sees fit, which includes, but is not limited to..._ The text began to fade and mangle, the ink making up jumbled letters and nonsense words, filler text so when a camera panned over it it would look like a full contract. At the bottom, there was an X and a solid line to sign on.

If Henry could go back in time, he’d convince Joey not to make this thing a demon.

The man’s eyes went over the sheet two, three, four times before he finally ventured to speak. “What--”

“It’s a _contract_ , knucklehead! Golly, that long in the industry and you don’t even know what a contract looks like…”

“I know _damn well_ not to sign _any_ of those without knowing the _exact terms_ ,” Henry’s lip curled. He went back slightly. “So _no._ Let me _go._ ”

Bendy’s eyes widened, and it turned the contract around, murmuring to itself. “Oopsy-daisy. Ink smudges. Well, I’m sure you don’t _need_ to know…” It’s body seemed to lose some of it’s solidity, ink on the top of it’s head beginning to drip around it’s face. “I don’t think you understand this, Henry.” It came forward, mouth becoming a grin. “You ain’t gonna leave until you _sign._ So maybe let’s make this all _easy_ on ‘ya, and you can head on home.” The demon let out a chuckle, voice beginning to get a little goopy and distorted. “Joey fought back, y’know. Made it a _lot_ messier than it needed to be…”

It came too close.

Henry stabbed it with the scissors in the chest.

Some flecks of ink came off of it’s head, forming lines of shock. Henry yanked the scissors back out, leaving a hole in Bendy’s chest. He got up and he bolted out of the room. Bendy watched him leave, the ink on it’s head dripping lower, lower, covering it’s eyes. The contract was crumpled up, reformed into a glove, and then put back onto the wrist. A grin crossed it’s face. It snapped it’s fingers.

One of the big ink pipes burst.

The ink rolled down the hallway floors, making Henry’s balance all the harder to keep. He darted past room after room, from sound design to the orchestra’s room and the board room for meetings. At some point the ink pool on the floor stopped being a problem, but his footsteps still left inky footprints on the floor--Footprints that never seemed to fade or thin. He didn’t even know where he was running, armed only with scissors, sealed inside. Maybe he could cut through whatever was jamming the door with this, or…

He skidded to a stop. A doorknob was on the floor. He looked over to the door it used to be attached to: Joey’s private office.

...He needed to do something before anything else.

Henry pushed open the door. The office was a cluttered mess. There was piles of old merchandise, half-melted black candles, and the faint smell of orange and smoke--Incense sticks? There was a more recent smell, too. Metallic. He could almost taste the scent, and it made his stomach turn a bit. Nevertheless, Henry went in, leaving more tracks of ink (but ever so careful not to mess up the chalk glyphs on the floor) as he went back to Joey’s desk. It was covered in drawings: concept art, backdrop pieces, and old storyboards, all signed by their respective artists. He could even see his own name in places. The drawings weren’t in any sort of neat piles, though. Some were all scattered on the floor. And the metallic smell seemed...Stronger here. What did that devil _do_ to him? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. On the upper-right corner of the desk was a telephone, and Henry picked up the receiver and quickly flicked through the proper numbers on the rotary dial. Please, please…

A cold, empty voice said that nobody was there and that his call would be recorded by a machine. Please leave your name and telephone number after the tone.

The tone played.

“Olive? It’s--It’s me, it’s Henry. Joey sent a letter, he wanted me to come back to the studio, but I--I don’t know when I’m coming back. I just wanted to let you know I love you. If I don’t come back by tomorrow, send somebody to come find me, alright? The address is--”

Henry let out a wail.

He forced himself to look behind him. There was Bendy, looking rather melted, teeth making a sharpened and wicked smile. It had taken all the ink in his footsteps and used it to create a sharpened black knife, and it’d stabbed it through the back of his pant leg and into his leg. Sharply, the demon pulled the knife down, increasing the depth of the wound; and as it did it reached a gloved finger into the slit and stole a trace of his own blood. Henry dropped the receiver of the telephone and lunged down with the scissors, but the demon melted down into a puddle of ink and Henry found himself on the ground and the scissors embedded into the wooden floor. He was breathing hard. He forced himself to look up. Bendy had rematerialized a few feet away from him, now back on-model and looking cute and cheery as ever. It had one glove off again, and the contract had been remade. The tip of one of it’s fingers became red. The contract was put on the floor. Bendy leaned over and signed it. Then it straightened up, grabbing the contract and showing it to Henry with a cheeky little smile. _Henry F. Wright._ Signed in his own blood. A perfect forgery. “I knew you’d come around, Henry! Jiminy Crickets, I was beginnin’ to think my pal was a couple’a leaves short of a Mint Julep, if you know what I mean. Glad to see you’re still smart as ever. Now,” The contract became a glove again and the demon stuck out it’s hand. “Slip me five, partner.”

Henry yanked the scissors out of the floor, grabbing at the desk to help brace himself as he rose again. He bit his lower lip, coming after Bendy once more. He was abruptly stopped. A small puddle of ink had sprouted an exact duplicate of Bendy’s hand, and it was grabbing his ankle. More puddles of ink from the pool in the hall began to slink into the room, and more hands came out of those pools, grabbing up both of Henry’s legs; and then puddles that were somehow clinging to the ceiling unleashed their own sets of hands to grab and restrain Henry’s arms. Henry let out a string of low curses, pulling and struggling against the multiple white-gloved hands. Bendy gleefully giggled, and it shuffled up to Henry, rocking up onto it’s tiptoes and still sticking out it’s hand. The other hands controlled Henry’s right arm like a puppet, forcing him to drop the scissors and shake Bendy’s hand. “Nice makin’ a deal with ‘ya! It’s like Joey always said: you make the _best_ partner! Let’s just take ‘ya back by the machine and I’ll take my due.” Bendy snapped it’s fingers, and the pools of ink began to move, dragging the confined Henry behind Bendy’s bouncy gait. It whistled a couple of notes before singing again. “ _Come on and hear, come on and hear, Alexander’s ragtime band…”_

“Put me down, you goddamn little devil--”

“ _Come on and hear, come on and hear, it’s the best band in the land…_ ”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re planning, but I’m not just going to let you--” He thrashed, pulling and kicking against the many hands, but they just stretched and twisted as though they were made of rubber and not ink. “-- _Do_ this! I never _lied_ to you! I never did _anything_ to you! I _left_ before Joey got involved in all this--All _this_! Just let me go!”

The singing stopped. Bendy shook it’s head. “Aw, don’t be sayin’ that. You ain’t an honest man. You seem like a good one, good man, but you ain’t _honest_ . Eh, but I guess it won’t be matterin’ soon.” It took a look over it’s shoulder, smiling at Henry. “If ‘ya didn’t like the terms, ‘ya shouldn’t have signed!” That made it burst into another giggling fit, and it turned back to the front. “ _They can play a bugle call like you never heard before, so natural that you want to go to war…_ ”

Henry gave a frustrated half-scream, and he pulled and kicked some more until he tired himself out. He stopped, trying to catch his breath. Bendy had stopped singing again. The only sound left was the demon’s bouncing footsteps, his hard heartbeat, and the increasing sound of grinding gears. The Ink Machine. He regretted ever getting that _thing_ started up again. Bendy came into the room dedicated to that infernal device, and Henry was dragged along behind him. The demon turned around on it’s heel (whistling a slide-whistle-decending sort of noise, for emphasis), observing Henry for a moment. Then it twirled a finger in the air. The puddles of ink all slid across the walls, shifting and extending and moving until Henry was laying vertically. He was too tired to fight. “Bendy--Bendy, _stop_ \--Don’t you even _think_ about--” He protested, but it lacked passion, it lacked fury. It was almost a _beg._

With a shooing motion of it’s hands, the demon directed the puddles of ink to move. The hands all pulled Henry until his face was directly under the nozzle of the Ink Machine.

“Bendy, Bendy, _stop_ , don’t--What about Olive--I’ll do anything, I’ll find those drawings, I’ll get you back on your feet, I’ll do _anything_ , just-- _Don’t_ \--”

“Can ‘ya bring back ‘ole Boris?” Bendy asked, raising an ‘eyebrow’. Henry didn’t respond. Bendy sighed, shrugging it’s shoulders. “Eh, I thought not.”

It pounded a fist against the side of the Ink Machine.

Ink began pouring out of the nozzle, covering Henry’s face.

He screamed, he kicked, he felt streams upon streams of ink enter his mouth. Maybe he swallowed some. Maybe he didn’t. Either way, his throat was burning. There was a pressure against one of his hands--Had Bendy grabbed it? The pressure was suddenly gone, and the sounds all faded, and the world, like the ink, went black.

…

“ _That’s just the bestest band what am, my honey lamb…”_

But he wasn’t dead.

He could feel the hard floor underneath him. His eyes felt stuck closed. Sounds were swimming in his ears. Bendy had said it’s plans weren’t lethal ones, but he hadn’t _believed_ it. He let himself just lie on the floor for a long, long while--What felt like an eternity to him. Sounds began to slowly clear. He could hear the churning of the Ink Machine, no longer sputtering ink.

“ _Come on along, come on along, and let me take you by the hand…_ ”

Something was very, very wrong about that singing.

Every inch of his body ached, but slowly and gingerly, Henry pushed himself into into a sitting position. He forced his eyes to open. He looked up.

There he was.

He was stretching. He was rolling his shoulders and pulling his arms up over his head. He was kicking out his feet. And then he rocked back on his heels, whistling a bit. “Leapin’ lizards, does this feel nice! Whole lot less flexible than I’m used to, but I think I can make it work! Aw, they’ll be takin’ me seriously _now_ , that’s for sure--I’ll be makin’ the money and gettin’ the love now!” He let out a laugh. He heard something sticky moving against the ground, and he looked over with a small and inquisitive ‘hm?’. Upon seeing what it was, though, he just smiled. “Geez, Henry, I was thinkin’ you’d _never ever_ come to! I didn’t want you to be stuck meetin’ poor Joey in Hell--Haha, I can say that now, that feels good! So, how do I look?”

Henry’s mouth felt sticky. It was _his_ body. He paused for a moment, and only a moment, to look himself over: lanky limbs, shiny shoes, white gloves, what looked like his old clothes but _weren’t_ his old clothes--He wasn’t anything more than a cartoon caricature of his old self. He was speechless.

“Well, don’t be a flatterer! I knew I looked pretty good, but I think I look even better now!” The former demon laughed, sauntering over to Henry and giving him a couple pats on the head. “Don’t you cry, though, buddy. I owe you one! Couldn’t have done it without your cooperation!” A wink, “I’ll be sure to drop by the studio again! I wouldn’t _dream_ of leavin’ you lonely. That’d just be _cruel._ ” He paused for a long moment before straightening up, adjusting his collar. “Well, oughta’ be goin’--Some people are bound to be missin’ me! I’ll be seein’ ‘ya around, right?” Without waiting for an answer, he clasped his hands behind his back and made his way out the door, whistling to himself. Henry tried to snap out of it, tried to wake up from this sick dream, tried to chase after that devil--But he couldn’t bring himself to it. The shock was too much.

He heard the front door open, as though it was never jammed at all.

“I’ll be sure to tune in later! Hah hah!”

And then he heard the door close again.

**Author's Note:**

> I mean, I loved Epic Mickey. Of course I'm gonna love this game.
> 
> I'm sure some of the details (names and whatnot) I made up are gonna be contradicted when Chapter Two comes out, so treat this as kind of an AU of sorts, I guess. And hey, on the off-chance nothing here is contradicted and you really liked those details...Go ahead and adopt them into your own headcanons! I sure won't mind. Don't have any of those things trademarked or anything.
> 
> Anyhow, hope you enjoyed!


End file.
